


The Art of Science and the Science of Art

by Lurafita



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Artist Peter, M/M, art and science, no powers au, pre-relationship starker, rich tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2020-11-26 23:43:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20938736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lurafita/pseuds/Lurafita
Summary: This was given to me as a prompt in my asks.So this is a no powers au. Tony is in his thirties, while Peter is in his twenties. Tony is still his billionaire self and head of Stark Industries, and Peter is an artist.I did some actual research for this one and most of the artworks described in the text were inspired (or unashamedly stolen) from this site: https://theartofeducation.edu/2017/10/26/11-fascinating-artists-inspired-science/So, let’s get this done!





	The Art of Science and the Science of Art

**Author's Note:**

> It kinda baffles me, that sometimes, when one writer takes inspiration from another writer's story, and puts their own ideas and twists into it, this particular plot becomes a trope. And then other times, when one writer takes inspiration from another writer's story, and puts their own ideas and twists intoit, they get attacked for stealing the idea.
> 
> I genuinely don't get this. (Well, no, actually I get it a little bit. Authors put a lot of work and love into their stories and it's only right to have that work be acknowledged.)
> 
> Look, let me explain.
> 
> I write about things I like, right?
> 
> I center my stories around the characters I like the most and create situations that I find exciting or appealing or enjoyable. (Or sometimes even sad or scary when I'm in a particular mood.)
> 
> Point of the matter is: I write what I want to read.
> 
> Which, to me, translates that I want others to get inspiration from my stories.
> 
> I want people to read my stuff and say: "I liked that. I'm gonna write something like that!", or: "This was a nice conclusion, but this story could have played out very differently. I would like to explore an alternate event.", or: "There was this one thing in this story that I would like to put into a different context.", or even: "Well, the idea itself was nice enough, but I don't think it was very well executed here. I would like to try my hand on this."
> 
> Because all of this, would afford me with a wide variety of stories to read that I would likely enjoy. (Not even to mention the great honor and ginormous ego-boost I would feel knowing that something I wrote somehow inspired someone else.)
> 
> So, with having explained my stand on this matter, please see this as blanket permission from me, to make use of anything written in my works of fanfiction you want.
> 
> Any prompt, plot bunny, vague idea, characteristics explored, circumstances written, or full on story of mine that has been published here;
> 
> \- if you want to write something with the same premise, but different developement
> 
> \- if you want to write something completely different, but want to use one aspect or characteristic featured in the stories
> 
> \- if you can find any inspiration from any of my works at all
> 
> PLEASE use whatever you need or want from them.

**The Art of Science and the Science of Art**

The thing is, it’s not enough to just be rich and famous. There is a certain song and dance that forces itself into your life and before you know it, you move your legs and swing your hips to it’s rhythm.

You don’t serve your business partner a glass of a ’_good_’ wine.

You serve them a glass of an ’_expensive_’ wine.

The richer and more important the person opposite you, the more expensive the bottle of wine, even if that person can’t really tell what it is specifically, that makes this one bottle more valuable than the cheap one at the liquore store.

Your suit is _bespoke_, there isn’t even a question about that. And it better be from a prestigious tailor.

You can wear comfortable clothes, _if _they are from the likes of Dolce and Gabbana, or Hermes.

Your cologne? Killian will do in a pinch, but it is better to have a little flacon of Tom Ford or Creed in your bathroom cabinet.

If the watch on your wrist costs anything less than 30,000 dollars, you might as well leave it at home.

Tony has been born into this world of luxury and thrived in it. He knows how to hum this song and dance this dance. And over the years, he has become rich and famous and successful enough to allow himself some leeway.  
Despite the various scandals of his youth, and the eccentricities of his more mature years, Anthony Edward Stark is _still _a true pioneer in his field, admired and envied by his peers and competitors, as well as the most sought after bachelor for years now.

If anyone specially invited to a high society event arrives thirty minutes late and in less than stellar clothes, they will become the laughing stock of the circle.  
If Tony Stark is three hours late and dressed in an untucked shirt and jeans, he is congratulated for his confidence and boldness.

If anyone else is caught having one affair after the other, their social standing will plummet.  
If Tony Stark is in the news with another man or woman on his arm every other week, his companies stock value is either unaffected, or will rise even more because of it.

It is the rich and famous that get to see the first performance of a high grossing musical, or opera.  
It is the rich and famous who are invited to theaters for a first viewing of a new play.

The audience for a fashion show of a high profile designer is mostly comprised of those that can afford the price tags.  
  
If you aren’t invited to a red carpet event? Well, then you simply aren’t worth the invitation.  
If you are invited but then fail to show? You just committed social suicide.  
If you are Tony Stark, however, those rules are out of the window. Because Tony Stark has to cater to no one.

So unlike pretty much anyone else, Tony could get away with not visiting the grand opening of the very first art exhibit of a new, but already incredibly popular, young artist. And if it weren’t for his very persistent personal assistant and good friend, Pepper Potts, he would have.

“Would you stop scowling already? I’m making you attend an exciting art show, not a firing squad. Jesus. Has it ever occurred to you that you might just enjoy yourself?”

The question earned two raised eyebrows and a scoff.

“Okay, first, there is _nothing _exciting about art. Period. It’s just a bunch of lines and paint on a canvas, or your run of the mill sculpture, depicting someone long dead, and usually nude. And don’t get me wrong, because I am without a doubt a great admirer of the naked human body, but that doesn’t mean I feel in any way drawn to or aroused by a block of cold clay. No matter how much detail is put into making the nipples look like they just puckered up, or how smooth the curves happen to be. And second, if you were _actually _taking me to a firing squad, that at least would be _exciting_. Guns I know. Guns I understand. Art is just… there.”

Pepper gave him a very unimpressed look, from where she was sitting opposite of him in one of the company’s spacious town cars.

“Please keep comments like that to yourself when we get there. Consider it an early birthday gift to me.”

“…Wasn’t your birthday last week? I’m pretty sure I sent you a cake.”

“My birthday is in two months. But yes, you did send me a cake. A strawberry cake.”

“Which you love.”

“Which I’m allergic to.”

“Oh…Well, at least I remembered that strawberries held significance to you. I feel like I should be getting points for that.”

A moment of awkward silence spread between them, in which the redhead treated her boss with the most cynical stare in existence, before Tony threw his hands up in the air.

“Fine, fine. I promise to walk around a boring room and look at _boring _paintings on boring walls and talk to _boring people _and keep all of my very true, but possibly degrading comments about the _un_importance of art to myself. Happy?”

“Delirious.”

She even smiled as she said it. Then she slipped her hand in her ridiculously small designer purse_ (honestly, why even bother with these things if you can’t fit anything practical in them? Like your phone. Or a screwdriver.)_, and pulled out a folded flyer.

“Here, that’s the theme of tonight’s exhibition. While the artist is pretty new to the scene, he has already made some noise in the community. Many think he is going to be the Van Gogh of this century.”

Tony accepted the flyer, but rolled his eyes.

“Van Gogh… isn’t that the one who cut off his ear? That kind of comparison doesn’t exactly ignite a whole lot of trust in me, concerning the next sure-to-be-a-waste-of-my-time hour of my life. I’m not exactly squeamish, but I’m really not into gore.”

He unfolded the piece of paper and read the caption with an almost sneer.

**‘The Art of Science and the Science of Art’**

Great. So the artist was one of those pretentious_ 'art is everything and everything is art’ _snobs. He was not looking forward to meeting… _what was the guys name, anyway?_ He scanned the paper quickly and found the name at the bottom, underneath a short introduction text to the kind of display that awaits the guests.

_Peter Parker._

___________________________________________________________

While self-satisfaction might not be very virtuous, Pepper couldn’t help the proud smirk that spread over her face, as she watched Tony all but fawn over the different artworks.

“Are you seeing this, Pep? This is a glass model of a magnified virus cell. They installed tiny light sources in specific places and angles to show how and where the cell interacts with the human body. And then there is a whole other set of lights and mirrors that indicates which parts are targeted and gradually destroyed by an antiviral drug. Actually, the way the mirrors are positioned here… yep. If you go around the pedestal and look at it from the different angles, it’s like a little movie. First you see the lights indicating the parasitic effect of the virus on the body, then the way the drugs counteract the effects, and once you reach full circle; Ah, see here? Now the lights and the mirrors and the shadows create the effect that the virus evaporated. Damn, that’s clever.”

Tony walked around the pedestal once more, trying to make out the positions and calculate the angles of all the lights and mirrors used.

Pepper’s previous gleeful smirk softened, as she watched her boss move on to the next exhibit, a gorgeous piece created with metals and specially coated glass. The reflected images and light created ‘Sun Drawings’, that moved and changed in response to sunlight and the passage of time.

Having been Tony Stark’s personal assistant for almost 8 years now, Pepper had learned much about the inner machinations of the man.  
And at his very center, Tony Stark was an engineer. A mechanic. He could talk theoretical physics with the best of them, but he preferred practical results. Tony’s work had a purpose, a direct impact.

Which was one of the reasons why he wasn’t normally swayed by art.

“Okay, this here? Classic movie effects. Chemical reactions used to visualize the images of a nuclear explosion, but it all happens under a microscope.”

While the billionaire could certainly appreciate beautiful art, something that was nothing more than 'nice to look at’ held no value to him. It was the same reason why he had tons of one night stands, and hardly any actual relationships in his life.  
He was at first attracted to a person’s physical beauty, which usually led to sex. But when the sexual need had been sated, mere physical attraction wasn’t enough to keep him interested in the person he had bedded the night before.

“Now this, this is art. Applied physics at its finest. Do you see how the magnets interact with and against each others polarity? This is a perfect demonstration of the symbolism behind the theory of gravitational forces.”

It was why Pepper had jumped on the chance to get her hands on the tickets to Peter Parker’s first ever art exhibition. He had been steadily making a name for himself over the last two years, and the redhead had seen some of his early works while she was on vacation in Europe. The young man had been set up in a corner of a street market in Marseilles, and with the help of various visual and practical effects, had explained the complex mechanics behind aerodynamic principles, to his wide eyed and utterly fascinated audience.

“A model of Nikola Tesla’s early design for a solar collector made by modern computer code. See this section here? That’s programming code for data extraction. In this context, it translates to Tesla’s attempt to convert the energy of solar rays into electrical power. It serves as a parallel between combining old and new resources. See? This is the kind of art one can actually talk about. Not a painting of a stupid fruit bowl.”

Whereas Tony used his genius and understanding of different areas of science to create and improve, Parker used his to teach and inspire. Parker’s art was something that Tony could not only relate to, but also admire, because it had purpose beyond it’s beauty.

The hour that Tony had initially given himself to suffer through the showcase had long since passed, as the billionaire found himself unable to curb any of his enthusiasm, as he grew ever more fascinated with every new piece of art. Other people milling about the rooms 'oohed’ and 'aahed’ as they inspected the different works of the artist, sipping on their glasses of complementary champagne. But Tony doubted they could truly grasp the idea; the genius behind it all.  
  


He was going to buy it all.  
The whole exhibit.  
_Everything_.  
He wanted those pieces in his company, in his home, in his workshop.  
He wanted to have the computer coded Tesla piece in his office, as a symbol of Stark Industries work on renewable energy.  
He wanted to gift the glass model of the virus cell to Bruce, to celebrate the biochemist’s latest break through in the field.

He wanted both the magnetic force field work and the microscopic chemical reactions in his workshop, as a source of constant inspiration. His fingers itched with the want to create, the need to pour his skills into his work.

He wanted_… He wanted to meet the artist._

When they had made their way almost full circle around the exhibit, they stopped at what appeared to be the last of the show cases. This one was different from the rest. For one, it was made out of Play Dough, though that was a fact Tony only realized by reading the description. How the hell this Parker guy had managed to form a completely genuine looking circuit board out of such an inferior material as children’s clay, he could only guess.

_He wanted to talk to the artist. _

Another thing that struck Tony was that this circuit board looked somehow familiar.

He leaned in closer.

“This one section here looks like a rather awkward welding job. The connections between the wires seem a bit clumped. I would put it down to the use of Play Dough, but the other details on the board are so clean… You know, this looks almost like-”

“-the circuit board you built when you were five years old.”

Both surprised by the new voice, Pepper and Tony quickly turned around. Just a step behind them stood a young man, dressed in a casual but nice enough suit, with deep brown eyes, fluffy looking chestnut hair and a shy smile. Pepper recognized the man she had seen in France right away, and held out her hand to him.

“Mr. Parker. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Virginia Potts. But please, feel free to call me Pepper. Everyone does.”

The artist took her hand with a pleasant smile.

“In this case, I insist on Peter. And the pleasure is mine, Pepper.”

Tony could hardly wait for the handshake to end, to insert himself into the introduction.

“So you are the surprisingly gorgeous face behind all these beauties. I’m-”

“Tony Stark. I know. I’m a big fan of your work, Mr. Stark.” Parker smiled brightly _(and blushing heavily)_ at him and eagerly reached for his hand. Then he shyly nodded to the pedestal display. “Your earliest work included.”

_He wanted…_

“Just Tony will do. One question, though. Why Play Dough? I may not have been very skilled with the welding equipment back then, but I do remember using the actual parts needed.”

Peter turned to his work, a helpless sort of smile on his lips, as he explained.

“When I was in my last year of highschool, and it was time to make a decision regarding college, I felt helplessly defeated. Was I supposed to attend one that focused on all the things that fascinated me about science, or one that focused on all the things I loved about art?  
I didn’t know if I would ever be able to meet the expectations others had placed upon me, and the ones I had placed upon myself. I became wary and anxious about every choice I made. Constantly questioning myself if it was worth it to try to combine the things I loved, or if I wouldn’t be able to hold on to both at the same time.  
Science versus art. Wanting to pursue such opposite things seemed ridiculous.  
But then my teacher gave us the task of writing a paper about a person that had greatly influenced our society and progress.  
I chose to write about you. And during my research, I found an old newspaper article, front page, about the young Stark prodigy, who was already showing the whole world how smart he was.  
The ordinary 5 year old makes crayon drawings and forms simple shapes out of Plasticine. A few can already read some of their children’s books, but many are still more focused on the pictures in them. But the 5 year old you broke out of the limitations perceived for kids, and defied expectations.  
And I thought to myself _‘Hey, if Tony Stark can build a circuit board at such a young age, then maybe I can find a way that doesn’t mean I have to give up on one of the things I love.’ _  
So, I guess I used the clay to symbolize what was expected, and your final design to show how you rose above.”

That shy little smile again. _He wanted…_

“In fact, you have done nothing but risen, Mr.- Tony. You have been a great inspiration for me, over the years. Quite possibly even a bit of a muse, if you will.”

Tony was a bit stumped, honestly. He had never been lost for words before. Thankfully he caught himself quickly. 

** _He wanted…_ **

“So, philanthropist, billionaire, genius, muse.” _(Had he just replaced his usual playboy title with ‘muse’?)_ “I like that.” _(He did.) _

** _Peter._ **

“As your muse, I get dibs, right?”

A confused little head tilt. 

_Cute_.

“Dibs?”

_On you._

“On the art pieces.” Tony elaborated with a sweeping gesture of his arm. “They are up for sale, right?

“Oh, yes. It’s uhm… we will hold an auction in a bit, after I have officially introduced myself to everyone here and said a few words.” Peter looked distinctly uncomfortable with that bit.

Tony was just opening his mouth to say something else, when suddenly Pepper inserted herself back into the conversation. (He had admittedly forgotten that she was there.)

“Peter, I think the woman over there is trying to get your attention.”

They turned to see a middle aged woman in an elegant dress, subtly gesturing to him. Peter grinned a bit ruefully as he turned back to his two companions.

“That’s my aunt, and also kind of my manager. I guess it’s time for my big entrance.”

He offered his hand once more first to Pepper, then to Tony.

“Pepper, Tony, again, it was a pleasure meeting you. Since it’s an auction, I can’t exactly grant you dibs, as much as I would like to.” He grinned at Tony. “But about 75% of all our revenues tonight will be donated to The Future Hope Foundation, which is a research center focused on developing cures for different diseases, speacially in children. I will be talking a bit more about that one in my speech, provided my severely repressed stage fright doesn’t hit me in a few minutes. So just know that whatever you decide bidding on, it will be worth it.”

Tony wanted to keep holding on to that hand. A hand that was just as calloused as his own, but still somehow softer and more delicate.

“I’m sure it will be.”

_You will be worth it._

Just as Peter turned to leave, he cast one last look at the Play Dough model.

“Take a look at the note beside the general description before things start going, would you?”

Then he and his aunt vanished out of the room, to prepare for Peter’s introduction.

Curious now, Tony and Pepper turned back around to the pedestal and found what Peter had been talking about.

_‘Of all my works, this one is my favourite, not only because of what it represents to me, personally, but also because of the person who inspired it. _  
Unlike many of the other pieces, that are named after that which they represent, for this one, no other title than 

##  _Indomitable_

_could have ever come to mind.  
This is the only piece in the show case that will not be part of the auction. As this one already belongs to Anthony Edward Stark.’_

“Pep.”

“Yes, Tony.”

“If I win every single auction bid, which I will, I would be entitled to a date with the artist, right?”

“You are probably still going to have to ask him the old fashioned way.”

_“Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you all for coming tonight. Without further ado, it’s my sincere pleasure to introduce you to the man whose art work has brought you all here.”_

Tony smiled. “I can do that.”

_“I proudly present to you, Peter Parker!”_

_________________________________________________________

The End.

And that's a wrap! Hope you liked it!

_ **Now, remember to have fun and enjoy what you love, and ignore any nay-sayers. Life can be short, don’t bother yourself with toxic people.** _


End file.
